Authors: Rain Oxford
“I was told to bring this here to Mr. Carter at this
time today,” he said, holding out a cloth bag. That wasn’t suspicious or
anything.
I took it. “Who told you to bring it here?”
The man smiled again. “About the hottest little
red-head I’ve ever seen. No one I know, just a woman. But I’ve got to be off
now.” He left and I shut the door.
“One of these days, things are going to have to start
making sense.” I cautiously dumped the contents of the bag onto my bed; a cell
phone and clothes. Mordon grabbed the phone, examining it. “That’s a cell
phone. Remember I told you about those?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I didn’t believe you.”
I knew he hadn’t. I reached over and pressed the
power button. The phone lit up and vibrated, making Mordon drop it on the bed,
and I laughed at his shock. “You look like a caveman just shown fire.”
“As if you were not the same when you first explored
Duran.”
I threw the tennis shoes, dark blue, long-sleeved
shirt, one of the pairs of jeans, and one of the jackets at him. We got dressed
in the warm, dry clothes. I wore a long-sleeved, dark green shirt and jeans. I
took the phone, my bag, our wet boots, and the key and we left, abandoning our
wet clothes.
The rain had stopped, but it left everything a dull
brown and gray. The sky and trees were gray, the ground and everything else was
brown.
“Is this winter in your world?” Mordon asked,
clutching his coat tighter.
Mokii had a warm, dry climate where they were more
likely to have a month-long drought in the summer than a couple of snow
flurries in the winter. While Mordon had traveled to other lands, he usually
had the luxury of doing his royal duties in warm places.
“I guess so, but this can’t be Houston. Maybe Oregon.
Let’s find the office,” I said. We went around the building to the front, where
five people stood about, looking up at the sky. “Hello,” I said. “We are
traveling from Houston and got lost. Where are we?” It felt odd to be speaking
with my own people again after so long.
One of the two women looked at us but the others were
busy having their own conversation. “Fort Smith,” she smiled.
That wasn’t very helpful. “Fort Smith, what?”
“Arkansas.”
“The green state?”
“Well, the wet state now. This is the first time it
stopped raining in three weeks!” she said, obviously happy for the rain to have
stopped.
“Does it normally rain like this?” Mordon asked.
The woman and I both denied it at the same time. “No
place is supposed to rain for three weeks straight. Has it been a heavy rain
like that? Or does it vary?” I asked.
“Heavy. But it’s not as bad as some places.
Everywhere is having erratic weather. California and Nevada are ranging about
twenty-five to thirty below. The rain is covering Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma,
and Arkansas. I wouldn’t continue heading north if I were you,” she warned.
“What’s up north?”
“The flu. It’s killing everyone up there.”
“What is the flu?”
Mordon whispered in my
head.
“It’s a sickness,”
I answered. “Thank you for
the help. Do you happen to know Vivian Green?”
“The lawyer?” she asked.
I frowned. Had Vivian really become a lawyer? “Red hair
and super skinny?”
“That would be her. She’s a big-time lawyer here. I
can’t believe they know her in Texas. She works at the law firm just down the
street.”
* * *
Finding her office building was easy. Vivian didn’t
even see us when she walked outside, dressed in a spiffy black skirt suit. She
hadn’t aged a day, but her hair was longer and lighter. She still looked
fantastic.
Mordon was busy gawking at the cars when she started
down the street. After I got Mordon’s attention, I pointed her out and we
followed at a distance. Everyone was outside enjoying the break from the rain,
so at least we weren’t obvious.
“You left
her
? And got
Divina
? What did
you do so well?”
“I didn’t leave her for Divina… I left her for Duran.
I couldn’t learn magic on Earth and becoming the Guardian was… It just felt
like the right thing to do.”
“You could have taken her with you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I had nothing to say.
Luckily, Mordon knew me and respected me enough not to push. Vivian arrived at
a decent little two-story brick house with a one-and-a-half-car garage and a
quant, fenced-in backyard.
We waited for a while before going up to her door and
knocking. Vivian answered the door and threw herself into my arms.
“Hello, Vi,” I said. I extracted myself politely and
with great difficulty.
She wore a very tight, light green tank top, a dark
green denim jacket, a gold belt, and tight, camouflage-patterned jeans. She was
still tall and model thin, but I didn’t feel the same attraction for her as I
used to. My insouciance wasn’t surprising; I loved Divina.
“Dylan, god, I thought I would never see you again.
How have you been?
Where
have you been?” She pulled me inside and Mordon
followed.
“Far away. I took an apprenticeship. I’m sorry I
disappeared on you.”
“Don’t worry about it. You had responsibilities.
Magic and all that.”
I froze.
What the hell is going on?
I felt
like I was in the middle of a bad joke or B-movie and everyone on Duran and
Earth was in on it. “What do you know about that?” I asked.
Vivian sat on the couch and picked up her tea. “Not
much. I met a friend of yours who explained to me that you are learning magic
to defend people. So very you.”
I plopped down on a chair across from her, then
jumped back up in shock as I had sat on a plastic toy. I got a cold feeling as
I regarded the toy. The room was modern with off-white walls, matching carpet,
and black leather couch and chairs. The television was large and tables classy.
It was a very mature room with stuffed animals and toys strewn about. No
child’s drawings or coloring books… just baby toys.
“Do you have a baby?” I asked. Vivian smiled, got up,
and left the room. She returned a minute later holding a tiny baby.
“He’s eighteen months old.”
Before I could object, she sat him in my lap. His shiny
hair was sort of a medium brown/copper, too dark to be ginger but definitely
more red than brown. He looked up at me with an incredible shade of purple
eyes; an eye color I have seen before.
“He’s sago!” I declared unwisely. I glanced over at
Mordon to make sure. I had gotten used to Mordon having one purple eye and one
blue, and purple eyes was not an uncommon color on Duran.
“He’s mine,” she corrected. “His name is Samhail and
I’m his mother. That makes him half human.”
“Who is his father?” I asked. The baby let out a
giggle and head-butted my chest.
“Sammy, stop it, that’s not your daddy. A friend of
yours. I won’t say anything more, though. I don’t want to give away any secrets
he might have. Oh, shit.” She jumped out of her chair.
I smelled the smoke and got up, careful not to jar
the baby in case he would start crying. The back of the easy chair I was
sitting on had caught fire.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, the flames died.
I looked at Mordon. He nodded, letting me know he put the fire out. The baby
babbled and reached for Mordon. Vivian reached behind the chair and pulled out
a candle that had fallen from the shelf.
“You are just as unlucky as you’ve always been. I
should have expected it,” Vivian laughed.
But it had been a long times since I was unlucky.
“So what have you been up to?” she asked.
“Well, other than learning magic, I’m sort of
engaged.”
“That’s fantastic. Have any babies of your own?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s complicated, really,”
I said.
She looked Mordon over, then turned back to me. “Complicated?
How complicated? Who’s your friend?”
Mordon approached her and shook her hand. “I’m Mordon
and I am also single.”
She giggled. “Sorry, babe. I’m still waiting for the
baby daddy to come home,” she said.
He frowned at me in confusion. Mordon learned every
bit of his English from me; he didn’t speak chick. “She is waiting for Sammy’s
father to come back. How long has he been gone?” I asked, repositioning the
baby. He kept trying to dive-bomb the floor.
She smiled sadly and drank down her tea. “He never
saw his son. He said he would come back before, but he had to get things ready
first. You had only been gone for six months when I met him. I still missed you
and searched for you. He found me and explained everything. How did you find
me? And why?”
“You will probably not like it.”
She smiled. “I doubt I will if you’re back. I take it
you’re here to save the world.”
“Yes, but I just have to save one person in order to
do it,” I said slowly.
She frowned. “Who?”
I looked at the little child, who had grown somber in
reaction to our tone.
“Oh, Hell. You don’t mean Sammy,” she said. “He’s
just a baby. He’s too young for magic and other worlds.”
“How long has the country had erratic weather?”
Mordon asked.
“For a few months now. It started out bad and didn’t
let up. Northern U.S. is all flu. To the West is freezing temperatures, central
is rain, southern is earthquakes, and eastern is over-populated because
everyone is trying to get away from the rest of the country. Alaska, Southern
Canada, and Northern Mexico are the same, Hawaii is missing.”
“What?! How can a state be missing?” I asked.
“Planes and ships can’t get to it because of the
weather. No communication can get through. You tell me what is going on.”
I sighed. “Something has come here, that wasn’t meant
to come. It isn’t human, and it’s very powerful. In order for it to stay here,
it needs the baby. We’re here to protect him. The thing is, we were expecting
an older child.”
She gave me a deadpanned stare.
“Well, I was under a lot of stress.”
“You were wishful thinking,” she argued.
“What?” Mordon asked, confused.
“I was being stupid. I left three years ago, and I
knew she never cheated on me, but pregnancy is nine months. Obviously, there
was no way the baby was more than two years old. Tiamat said I would have to
find a child and I was thinking he was five or something.”
“Why? Why can’t you save him now?” Vivian asked.
“In order to save him, we must take him to another
world. He can come right back after that, but we have to get him out of here.”
“That’s fine, you’ll just have to take me, too,” she
insisted.
“Only two problems: my mentor has to come so you can
sign the book, and Sammy has to be able to sign his name.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I didn’t have an answer, so it’s just as well that
was the moment I blacked out.
* * *
I was back in Divina’s place, somehow between here
and there.
“I’m sorry, Dylan.”
“That is never a good hello,” I answered. “What is
wrong?”
“Your master is missing. Because of my brothers’
opposition, I cannot get the child and your friend to Duran without Erono’s
book. I have asked for help from other Guardians, but my brothers are hindering
my efforts.”
“Why? Why would they not want to help me stop this
creature? I helped them!”
“It is not you they are against.”
“What is going on?! Everything is messed up.”
“Yes, it is. The blood of the worlds and time is
mixing. Doors were opened that were not supposed to be opened. If we do not
tread carefully, everything will come undone. Whatever you do, do not let---”
Without a blink or a flash I was back in Vivian’s
living room. Mordon was holding the baby and Vivian was trying to get me up.
Climbing to my feet was difficult due to the vertigo, but I managed.
“What did she say?” Mordon asked.
“That we’re on our own. Edward is missing.”
“What are we going to do?” Vivian asked, taking her
baby.
I sighed. “Protect Sammy until the creature gives
up.”
Vivian left the room to put Sammy in his play swing
and I contemplated. “What’s wrong?” Mordon asked me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I thought she was
about to tell me something very important, but she sent me back, instead.”
* * *
We decided to stay at Vivian’s house instead of going
back to the motel, mostly because we didn’t have a crib in the motel. I decided
to have a little fun and introduce Mordon to the shower. Duran ranged quite a
bit in modern conveniences. Shomodii was a place most suited for wizards and
magic often interfered with too much technology, so there was no electricity or
indoor plumbing on the land. Really, I think it had more to do with older
wizards disliking technology than any magical interference. Then again, I
wasn’t going to find a laptop to test that theory. Still, Edward teased me
quite a lot when I first moved there. Anoshii, on the other hand, did have
electricity and many of the technological conveniences of Earth, including
indoor plumbing. While there were no phones, there was a form of email.
Duran was full of magic and when I did find technology,
it was usually astounding. The lack of things such as TV and game systems
wasn’t because of a distaste for technology or deficiency of ability or
imagination, but because it was a different culture. While each of the major
islands had a strikingly different culture, with an overall resemblance to
Earth’s Japan, none of them considered technology a good tool for
entertainment. They used it for learning, making their work easier,
communicating, etc… but never to enjoy.
It took me more than a year to fully grasp the
concept. Sure, it sounded simple enough when Edward had tried to explain it to
me, but I never really understood it until I saw it for myself. And there were
no showers. Edward and I were lucky to have the haunted springs, which also ran
through Divina’s territory. Other people of Shomodii had to heat their water
with fire or magic. Anoshii, Zendii, and other places like them with indoor
water systems had bathtubs, but no showers. Apparently, it never occurred to
them.